The present invention, in some embodiments thereof, relates to a system and a method for registering medical imaging data, such as computed tomography (CT) images and, more particularly, but not exclusively, to a system and a method for using a binary atlas of the human skeleton for registering medical imaging data.
Medical images are images of a human subject that are analyzed for the purposes of biological and medical research, diagnosing and treating disease, injury and birth defects. Commonly, medical images involve modalities which are designed for capturing data for imaging internal organs and tissues in a non-invasive manner. Examples of such modalities include computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), positron emission tomography (PET), ultrasound, fluoroscopy, conventional x-rays, and the like. Medical images may be analogue or digital, two-dimensional or three-dimensional; however, three-dimensional modalities are digital.
When medical images are taken for diagnosis they are usually meticulously inspected by computer aided diagnosis (CAD) systems and/or trained medical practitioners, for example radiologists, to detect instances of abnormality that may be indicative of diseases. Additionally, the medical images may be used to accurately locate lesions so that treatments such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy may be precisely delivered and surgery may be effectively planned.
As medical images are usually three or four dimensional, the practitioner may step through a sequence of two-dimensional image slices at regular intervals, inspecting each slice. Thus, inspection of medical images may be tedious and prone to error. Accordingly, methods of computer aided detection (CAD) have been developed for the automatic location, registration, and segmentation. CAD may also be used for locating, characterizing, segmenting and diagnosing anatomical structures.
During the last years, methods and system for medical image registration, such as medical image registration, have been developed. For example, US. Patent Application Publication No. 2008/0267483 published on Oct. 30, 2008 describes method for registering a medical image by acquiring a first medical image of a subject, synthesizing one or more simulated medical images based on the acquired first medical image; training one or more matching functions using the first medical image and the simulated medical images, acquiring a second medical image of the subject, and registering the first medical image and the second medical image using the one or more trained matching functions.
Another example is provided in U.S. Pat. No. 6,999,811, published on Feb. 14, 2006, that describes method and device for the registration of two 3D image data sets of an object to be examined. The object to be examined is provided with a plurality of markers In order to enable a registration to be carried out, the positions of the markers in the 3D image data sets are first determined in a co-ordinate system associated with the relevant 3D image data set. The distances between the markers and/or the angles formed between lines which intersect in a marker and extend through two further markers are then determined. Finally, a transformation rule for the transformation of one of the 3D image data sets to the co-ordinate system of the other 3D image data set is determined.